The brother of the man who killed two women and injured nine others in the Louisiana movie theater shooting told Daily Mail Online today that he believed his estranged sibling had been on a slow march to the dark side.

Rem Houser spoke to Daily Mail Online from his lakeside home in Hamilton, Georgia, on Saturday about John Russel Houser, 59.

John Houser opened fire at the Grand Theatre in Lafayette on Thursday night, where more than 100 people were watching the 7pm screening of the movie, Trainwreck.

John Houser killed Jillian Johnson, 33, and 21-year-old Mayci Breaux, before taking his own life when cornered by police.

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Rem Houser talks about his brother, John Houser, who shot two and injured nine in the cinema shooting in Lafayette Lousiana

The gunman, John Russel Houser, who has been described as a 59-year-old 'drifter'

His brother Rem struggled to comprehend his brother's actions and said that his family were praying for the families of the two women who had been killed along with those victims recovering in hospital.

Rem Houser said: 'We want answers too but we are not going to get answers. How can you get answers out of somebody who has been mentally ill?

'This has been going on for 20 years with our family. We have been separated from him (John Houser) for probably 20-something years.'

Rem Houser described growing up with his brother, known as Rusty, in suburban Georgia.

'Growing up, we were middle Americans, an average family. Rusty played sports, I played sports,' he said.

'Everything was great, then he started getting dark on us and went quiet after college. He just started drifting out on us, I don't know what happened. I don't know what mental illness or any of that.

'He just started separating from us. We didn't have any problems. We weren't mad; he wasn't mad, he just went quiet on us.

'He went from a very active, fun guy to be around to very quiet and calm socially.

'I think a lot of it comes with age. I think the older that people get, whatever the issues are, the more they are.'

He added: 'I think it was a slow march to the dark side. We had seen him getting darker.'

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Police said John Houser last lived in Phenix City, Alabama, but had been evicted from his home in 2014.

Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor said on Friday that police received a domestic violence complaint against Houser in 2005, but the victim didn't want to prosecute.

Houser applied for a concealed weapons permit in 2006, according to police, but was refused because of the domestic violence complaint and a previous arrest for arson in nearby Columbus, Georgia.

Rem Houser spoke to the Daily Mail Online from his home in Hamilton, Georgia

Police confirmed Houser had purchased the handgun legally at pawn shop in Alabama last year, and that he had been to the Lafayette movie theater prior to the shooting.

In recent years, Houser had become 'kind of a drifter', police said, but do not believe that he was working with anyone else.

Houser's only connection to Lafayette was the fact that his uncle once lived there, but has been dead for 35 years.

While Houser had a criminal history, police said, the 59-year-old had not been arrested recently. His past charges included selling alcohol to a minor and arson - arrests that date back 10 to 15 years.

Victims: Jillian Johnson (left), a 33-year-old who ran a gift shop with her husband, and 21-year-old Mayci Breaux (right), who went to Louisiana State University, were both killed by Houser

A view of a memorial at the store owned by Jillian Johnson one of the victims in the Lafayette movie theater shooting at the Red Arrow Workshop

Court records also revealed that his family once tried to put him in a psychiatric hospital and that his ex-wife Kellie Maddox Houser hid firearms from him, fearing for her own safety.

Rem Houser added: 'I think what tipped him over was his wife... They have been separated for five years and then she finally said, 'I have to move on', and she filed for divorce.

'She was paying for the house, he wasn't working and then the bank foreclosed on it and forced him out.

'I think all of this just sent him over the edge. I think he was fragile, quiet, living his life peacefully in his house and nothing was setting him off, everything was ok, and then you're put out on the street basically.

He continued: 'I think it just sent him over the edge. And then he disappeared.'

Mr Houser last saw his brother John about two months ago. He said: 'He needed some money so my mother gave him some money.

'I gave him the money and we had a little text [message] contact but nothing that told us anything.

'Before then, I hadn't seen him or heard from him in about ten years until two months ago when I gave him the cash he needed from my mother. He disappeared, we didn't know where he was, we hadn't heard from him.

'Then this whole thing - we never thought he had the capability to do this. He showed no signs.'

The Grand Theatre in Lafayette, where the gunman opened fire 20 minutes into a screening of Trainwreck

Mr Houser found out about the shooting when the FBI came to his home on Friday morning at 3am.

He said: 'He's definitely mentally unstable but not a violent guy. Not something where you think, 'Hey we need some help', we didn't see any of that. We are all shocked.

'Everyone is trying to get an answer but you're not going to find one, none of us are. You can't understand a person that is mentally out of it, that is mentally deranged.'

Flowers are pictured at the scene of the shooting at the Grand Theatre Louisiana Lafayette

Rem Houser said he had no idea about the bizarre extremist online messages his brother had posted.

'I don't know about that; a lot of that stuff I am reading in the newspaper too,' Rem Houser said. 'He's got a lot of basic views on life but the problem was he was so passionate and extreme a person, it made people back off from him.

'I don't like hearing these extreme views on the government and gay rights and abortion. But he was so hopped up on them.'

Neighbor Russ Lenig, lived two doors down from Houser's former home and said the gunman had been a troublesome neighbor

A neighbor, Russ Lenig, who lives two doors down from Houser's former property, told Daily Mail Online the couple who live between his home and Houser were forced to build a fence.

Mr Lenig said: 'Houser was doing construction on his home and there was trash all over the place. Then he would be outside working on all these cars, cussing and swearing while our neighbors had their young grandkids over.

'When he was kicked out by the bank last year, he poured concrete in the drains and wrecked the house, throwing paint over the walls.

'He had about 300 koi carp in his pond and he killed them, then started spreading the fish parts everywhere.'

Mr Lenig said Houser had once stopped him in the street and offered to let his family use his pool but that he had turned down his offer.

The exterior of the property where Trainwreck gunman John Houser lived until he was evicted from the home in 2014

One of Houser's neighbor's said the gunman had offered to let his family use his pool but he declined the offer

Exterior shots of the home where John Houser lived until 2014. Neighbors said he wrecked the home pouring concrete down the drains before he was evicted

Police confirmed that after Houser was evicted from his Phenix City home in 2014, he returned and caused damage, including pouring concrete in plumbing pipes and tampering with a gas line.

Reverend Brady Baird, the pastor of Summerville United Methodist Church which stands on the corner of Houser's street, told Daily Mail Online that he was a quiet neighbour. The reverend was shocked to find out Houser was behind the tragedy.

Rev Baird said he believed that Houser 'probably suffered from bi-polar disorder or something like that'.

'He was quirky, you knew when he was riding his cycle,' he said. 'But he never showed any violence or outrage or anything like that'.

The reverend said that Houser was evicted from the home in 2014.

He added: 'We didn't know where he was. Not that we were worried about it. He got evicted and he was just gone and he didn't say anything.'

Trainwreck gunman John Houser attended Columbus High School, pictured, in the 1970s